


Ain't No God, No Ghost Gonna Save You Now

by gimmefire



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Apocalypse, Gen, Gore, Horror, Violence, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-01
Updated: 2010-11-01
Packaged: 2017-12-03 16:58:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/700569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gimmefire/pseuds/gimmefire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Maybe he'll just run. Just run and keep running until he's caught, until he bleeds to death or until he collapses from exhaustion.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ain't No God, No Ghost Gonna Save You Now

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [You and me better find some tougher friends](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/17839) by hulkenberg. 



> Written in a flurry and probably not edited very well, hurr. Title taken from The Distillers' _Hall of Mirrors_.

Felipe crouches by the solitary light in the room, the orange glow from a surge protection extension cable, and tries to gather his thoughts. He tries to plan where to head for next, whose motorhome might be more secure than others; he tries not to think about who he hasn't seen and tries even harder not to think about who he _has_. His thoughts don't obey and he's left with a jarring white noise of terror coursing through his mind.

Panic wells in him like a sudden sob; he's too on edge to break down, too terrified – he'd never, ever wanted to find out if it was possible to be too terrified to cry – and to break down would be a release of tension, to let your guard down for a moment, and that cannot happen, not now. He has to _stay_ terrified. Instead, he crouches in that corner of the room, shaking.

He digs out his Blackberry from his pocket, desperate for a familiar voice, and thinks of calling his wife, or perhaps his mother. Anyone who he knows isn't at the track. He's been alone for hours; it feels like eight of them but is probably more like three, scrambling from room to room trying to stay safe. He assumes they're okay, that this isn't happening anywhere else. He has to.

Even if he did call someone away from the track, he daren't speak to them. Breathing too loudly is a potential death sentence, so whispering the words _I'm okay and I love you_ might be a quick route towards not being okay at all.

He wants to call Rob. Memories of Rob's voice briefly push through the white noise in his head, guiding him, soothing him, and he clutches the phone so tightly his hand begins to cramp. If he calls Rob and Rob is still alive, his ringing phone might be what dooms him. If he calls Rob and it just rings and rings...

His mind flashes with the image of Rob as one of _those things_ and his reaction to the mere thought of it is so strong that he retches loudly before he can clap a hand over his mouth. He shrinks into himself and stares at the door, or where he knows the door is; the room is too dark for him to even make out its outline. Though the electricity isn't yet out, he daren't draw attention to himself by switching the lights on.

There's only one door, and that's okay because it's on the opposite side of the room to him. That would give him time if anything were to break through. He stares towards the door, eyes burning with the desperate need not to blink, and tries to be still. He tries.

With one hand clutching his phone to his chest, his other rests on his weapon. Initially, when this had all started, he'd laid his hands on a jack, but it was too cumbersome to wield and the cacophony it made whilst being dragged around ruled it out. Every wrench and spanner he'd come across had felt too inconsequential. He'd settled on something else; quite big but not particularly weighty, extremely sturdy and easy to do some damage with - his helmet. On finding it, he'd stuffed a bag of bolts inside and taped it in place for extra weight, then taken the chinstraps and tied them around his hand, wielding it like a sort of flail. His helmet had saved his life before. Perhaps it could do so again.

There's the sound of movement outside. He can't tell if it's in a distant part of the building or right outside his room. A violent shiver runs through him when the sound comes again, louder. He wishes his mind would just accept what was going on so he could stop feeling so scared. He wishes he wasn't alone.

That sound, again, louder.

He screws his eyes shut and scrubs at them with a blood-stained sleeve; they're so dry it hurts to close them. Silence follows. Seconds tick by, and there's still silence. He didn't know he could breathe so quietly.

Still silence. Momentarily he wonders if he's gone mad, if he's lapsed into catatonia.

He was never really into zombie movies, perhaps he might have been better prepared if he was.

Silence.

Slowly, slowly, he straightens up, slipping his phone back into his pocket and gripping his helmet's chinstraps. Maybe it's time to move, he's taken enough respite here. Maybe the cavalry are waiting for him outside. Or maybe he's the last one lef—

_BANG!_

The noise crashes through Felipe's consciousness and he flinches violently, spinning around to face the window. The window he'd entirely forgotten about. The window that's not even five feet away from him. The window at which one of those creatures stood, forehead and both blood-slicked hands pressed against the glass, staring directly at him.

It's wearing a team uniform, a dark one, could have been from Red Bull, Toro Rosso or Virgin but it's too torn up and blood soaked to tell for sure. Felipe faintly recognises him. It.

He tries not to think about it. It looks like it's had part of its cheek ripped away.

Still it stares at him. Occasionally a muscle twitches in the face, the arm, the head jerks, but still it stares him right in the eye, looking at once incredulous and angry. Felipe stares back, tries not to move or breathe. _It's dark in this room,_ he tells himself. _Maybe if I don't move, it can't see me._

One of its hands begins to slide slowly down the glass, smearing blood and grime, its lip curling in a silent growl. Out of the corner of his eye Felipe sees another one of them, hobbling across the paddock. It stops on seeing the one at his window, and momentarily Felipe's gaze flicks to it.

_BANG!_

The first one slams its hand against the window and Felipe jumps again, heart hammering. It snarls, presses itself against the window, pushes against it, slams its hand again. Felipe backpedals in a panic, any pretence of not having been noticed deserting him, clattering painfully into a table in his haste to move away. The second creature stumbles over, suddenly keen to join its cohort in getting into the room as directly as possible.

Felipe presses himself against the far wall and grits his teeth. "I can fight two of them," he whispers, hugging his helmet to his chest and clamping down on his terror. "There's only two. Two." He fleetingly notices that the second one is in a Ferrari shirt and the recognition arrives soon after; he was from Fernando's side of the garage, not that that make it any better. Felipe knows his name, ate lunch with him, chatted with him, and the thought of it makes his chest hurt. He looks back to the one he's not so familiar with, still battering itself against the glass. "Two," he whispers again. With each deep, shuddering breath he says 'two' in a different language, both as a distraction and preparation.

He's about to launch forward when two more appear. Panic seizes him and the instinct to fight twists into an instinct for flight and he runs for the door without thinking. Flinging it open, he swings his helmet behind him and swipes at empty air with it – there's nothing waiting for him on the other side of the door. The moment he steps out into the brightly lit corridor, however, it changes; he turns his head to see one bowling towards him. Instead of fleeing with no escape plan to speak of, adrenalin seizes him and he rushes to meet the mangled creature, swinging his helmet high above his head and bringing it down with a cry. It cracks against skull with enough force to drop the undead thing to the floor. Felipe grips his makeshift weapon with both hands to smash it down again. The thing at his feet spasms after the second blow but still weakly reaches for him; before it can touch him Felipe scrambles over it and runs.

He doesn't know where he's going. He can't remember if this is the direction he came from in the first place. He doesn't know if he should head back outside and run for one of the motorhomes or find another room to hide in here. Wild eyed and damn near mindless, he reaches the end of the corridor and turns left without hesitation. A shorter corridor confronts him, one door to the left and a fire escape straight ahead. He takes the door to the left, helmet raised high again; this time it's fortunate that he does, because one lunges at him from within the moment the door swings open. Felipe jumps back a step to give himself room to swing and cracks his elbow on the handle of the rebounding door. It throws his balance off and by the time he cries out in pain the zombie is on him, one hand around his throat, the other ripping at his shirt. They crash to the floor in a heap.

"L-let go!," he shouts hoarsely as the hand at his throat forces his head back, the collar of his shirt stretching and tearing and exposing his flesh. His left arm is numb from striking it against the doorhandle and temporarily useless, but his right arm is the one clutching the helmet. With all his might he smashes it against the side of his attacker's head once, twice, the second time he hears bones break – jaw? Skull? – and the third time he changes the angle and smashes it into its eye socket. Felipe blinks as blood hits his face, a small fount of it spraying from the creature's now broken nose, and finally its grip loosens enough for him to kick free. He scrambles to his feet, gasping for breath, and stares at the thing. It stays down on its hands and knees, limbs at just slightly peculiar angles, jaw slack and dripping with blood and some sort of yellow ooze. Its press pass, still around its neck, dangles in the growing mixture on the floor. Felipe would retch if he hadn't already seen such a sight several times that day.

Adrenalin fading, the fear returns, and when the thing raises its head to stare at him, Felipe presses his back against the wall and begins to edge away.

"Okay," he says, voice shaking. His left arm is tingling back into life, and with it he points a wobbly finger at his assailant. "I don't want to kill you. I don't want to kill anybody. M-maybe you can be fixed, you know? So...you stay there, and it's okay. You _stay there_ ," he repeats as firmly as he can muster. He keeps edging along the wall and doesn't tear his eyes away from the dead ones looking back at him. Through his peripheral vision he notes that at some point during the struggle the door had thankfully been struck closed, and that this room is dangerous – filled with tables and computers, it's impossible to tell if they're the only two occupants. What's more, he could feel a breeze; the window at the far end of the room was open. Coming in here was a bad idea.

His bottom lip is stinging, feels a little swollen. That thing must have caught him across the face, or he'd accidentally hit himself in the struggle. He had no idea. Felipe flexes his left hand as the feeling fully returns and wipes his mouth. He must have put about twelve feet between himself and the creature. It's not enough.

He gasps when his leg thuds into something on the floor, the surprise of it almost making him lose his balance. He looks down and it's a body, almost completely eviscerated, ribs snapped and jutting out at sickening angles. The carpet beneath his feet is sopping with blood. He looks away sharply before his eyes can stray to the face, a face he might recognise. _What if it's Rubens?,_ something whispers inside him. _Massimo? Nicolas? Michael? Rob?_ It's none of them and all of them at once to his mind. The thought is singularly more terrifying than whatever tore that body apart.

A noise somewhere between a hiss and a growl prickles through Felipe's consciousness, and he flinches on seeing that the inhuman thing that attacked him has moved. The twelve feet of space has become seven. It stares as he stands rigid, not hungrily looking him up and down, not frowning with momentary flickers of recognition, just stares him right in the eye, perhaps still until the right synapse fires to command its body to lunge forward and rip his throat out.

To Felipe's left lies a body, to his right stands this zombie, and before him is row after row of tables. Despite the sudden shot of fear, Felipe scowls. "I told you to _stay_ ," he says, sounding as threatening as he possibly can in such a situation. "Do you want me to punish you like a dog?" He brings his helmet up and smashes it off the table in front of him, the blow hard enough to make the table bounce. " _Go away!_ "

The creature does not flinch. It gives another rattling hiss, blood from its headwound dripping from its chin. Felipe stiffens, halfway between afraid and supremely frustrated, and he gets two syllables into repeating his last words when it lunges, hands again aiming for his throat. Felipe's eyes widen and he throws himself awkwardly over the table, tumbling to the floor on the other side. He's up in a heartbeat and vaulting over the next table, scattering pens and notepads across the carpet as he goes. After the second table he looks back, sees the thing still clumsily going after him. The noise of their chase is horrendously loud and the door begins to rattle violently; it wouldn't take many of them to break through. Felipe's only option is the open window.

As he looks back around to his sole escape route, he catches something slim and red lying on the floor out of the corner of his eye – a fire extinguisher. Not full sized, it looks like it would reach his knees when stood up. Big enough to do damage. Felipe turns and scrambles for it, but as he grasps it he fumbles it – it's streaked with something wet, perhaps the unfortunate person had defended himself with it – and he almost goes head over heels. In the same moment the zombie crashes down on the table beside him and it tips, it and the computer on it thudding into Felipe's side and knocking him down. Pain rips through his body and he screams; for a paralysing moment he thinks he's been bitten, but no, the pain is coming from his stomach, and the fire extinguisher lies beneath it...

Fortunately the beast, though having avoided falling with the table, has collapsed into the next table, sent that falling and somehow become pinned between it and the following one, with Felipe lying out of reach. Felipe lies with his head buried in the crook of his arm, unable to get his breath and in incomprehensible pain. Carefully he lifts his head and moves a shaking hand to first push the table off him and then take hold of the extinguisher, giving an agonised moan when he pushes himself up and feels the extinguisher handle slide out of his stomach. He stays on his hands and knees for a moment, hearing a slow, steady _thp thp thp_ of blood dripping into the carpet beneath him, before sitting back heavily on his haunches, shaking his hand free of his helmet's chinstraps and clamping it firmly over the deep wound. The handle must've been six inches long; three inches of it must've punctured his skin.

 _Jack Bauer, Jack Bauer, Jack Bauer,_ he thinks against wave after wave of pain, and mutters something about not being able to kill the undead beast now even if he'd wanted to. He grits his teeth, undoes his helmet's chinstraps and rips the tape from the underside of it one-handed, pulling the bag of bolts free and discarding it. Briefly he removes his other hand from his wound to pull the battered helmet onto his head and do up the strap. With his limited knowledge of zombies this is the best he can do. _If I'm caught, they're not going to get to my brains._

He probably doesn't have much longer now.

He drags himself to his feet and picks up the extinguisher, grunting with each movement. " _Filho de puta,_ " he growls as he scuffs past the still pinned and struggling creature. Now he needs to find something to bandage his wound, and there's no first aid kit to be seen in here.

Maybe he'll just run. Just run and keep running until he's caught, until he bleeds to death or until he collapses from exhaustion. There's grim resignation in his movements.

He approaches the window carefully, seeing a few of the shuffling undead outside beneath the bright artificial lights, but none are looking his way. Nerves frazzled and mind clouded with pain, he couldn't recall where he was in relation to the medical centre; the view didn't help him remember. The sound of movement behind him, of a table shuddering along the floor, tells him to move regardless.

He drops the extinguisher out of the window to the grass below and it garners no attention from those things outside, so he takes a few deep breaths and follows it as quietly as possible. He almost bites through his bottom lip in an effort not to cry out in pain. He wonders if he's going into shock, or if he's _already_ in shock.

He looks around and slowly gets his bearings, keeping still for a few moments so as not to draw attention to himself. He counts seven walking corpses within view, four close enough to be dangerous. He guesses that, if he's where he thinks he is, the medical centre is to his left, just out of view beyond the next towering building. The smart option would be to get to it by sneaking around the nearby buildings and staying out of sight in the shadows; he doesn't have time for that. Blood is beginning to soak into the waistband of his jeans.

Maybe all his friends will be waiting for him in the medical centre, barricaded in with weapons, food and, of course, medical supplies. Maybe he won't be alone.

Taking another deep breath, Felipe focuses on the thought of his waiting friends and picks up the extinguisher with a grimace, affecting his best ambling gait, going as quickly as his wound allows. He only gets a few steps along the grass before one of the creatures ahead turns and looks straight at him, almost as if it has caught his scent. Felipe tries not to look at it, his heart starting to pound. He tightens his grip on the extinguisher when he realises that it will reach him before he will be able to duck around the corner. He picks up the pace and a second one turns to look at him. The now all too familiar feeling of panic begins to rise within him, spiking when two more of them appear from the section of the paddock he's heading directly for. His amble has become a steady jog with four zombies moving towards him with bared teeth – four that he can see, anyway; he daren't look behind him. His heart is beating so hard, so loud...

A break between the buildings he's running flush with, and there's a sudden, terrifying hiss. He turns his head, helmet offering limited peripheral vision, and stumbles sideways to keep himself from being knocked to the ground by the bloodied beast that attacks him from the darkness. Something somewhere in his brain notes the flash of a logo – _Mercedes_ – before he swings the extinguisher half-heartedly at it, catching it a glancing blow across the temple. He staggers on, his jog becoming an unsteady run, still not looking back. Not far to go. Not far to go, keep going. _Please_ keep going.

Two more of them come into his view, reaching out to greet him with dead eyes and gaping red mouths. Felipe scowls, feeling oddly safer – and braver – with his helmet on, and he swings the extinguisher up to crack one of them squarely in the chin. It staggers back and falls and in the same moment the second latches onto his other arm. The ensuing struggle sees Felipe's hand yanked away from his stomach wound, and he roars in blinding pain when the creature grabs at it, fingers digging into his exposed flesh and muscle. The overwhelming need for the pain to stop rightthefuck _then_ sends Felipe into a brief frenzy, kicking and beating it until it lets go and smashing the extinguisher into its head until it falls, until the sound of bone shattering and brain mashing leaks into his consciousness and he stumbles back into the wall, clutching his stomach and doubling over, sobbing in agony.

 _Please keep going_ , he tells himself. _It's only hopeless if you give up._

He pushes himself along the wall, hobbling until he can straighten up somewhat, and he takes no more than five steps before he hears a familiar snarl over his shoulder and hands are grabbing at him again. This time he manages to jerk away and resumes his unsteady run. Never before has it taken him so long to walk half the length of the paddock.

Relief floods through him at the sight of the medical centre when he finally rounds the corner, so much so that he smiles and it takes him a moment to even notice the zombies between him and his believed salvation. He counts seven of them within view, all turning to face him, knows there's several more approaching him from behind. From the feel of it, and with how woozy he's becoming, he guesses that most of the front of his thigh is now stained dark red with his own blood.

" _Please,_ " he whispers, and he's not sure who he's begging, God, the zombies or himself. He removes his hand from his wound, wipes the blood from his palm on his ruined shirt and holds the extinguisher sideways across his chest, like a pugil stick. That word passes his lips again. "Please." Then his legs move and he's running.

The first to go for him is sent crashing to the ground courtesy of the butt of the extinguisher smashing into its nose. Another grabs his shoulder from behind, and he twists around, swings backwards as he does so and strikes it across the cheek. Momentum spins him in a circle before his lurching run resumes. More of them have crawled out of the shadows to head for him, as if they'd been waiting for someone to enter No Man's Land; he can see ten, maybe more. His heart pounds as if it's trying to puncture his chest. He strikes another one across the face, makes it another few steps. Swings again and doesn't make contact but the motion is enough to get him past his target.

He swings again, confidence growing, halfway to the medical centre, so close...and his heart stops when the extinguisher slips from one of his hands, the other keeping its grip on the handle. Momentum sends his weapon sailing in the wrong direction, wrenching his wrist and fingers before he instinctively lets go. It cartwheels through the air and clatters across the tarmac and suddenly he's defenceless.

Felipe hears himself whimper and his hands go to his chinstrap, intending to rip his helmet off use that, but hands clamp onto his arm, another grabs the back of his shirt. He flings his arms around in a blind panic, landing a few extremely lucky blows and wrests free. All he can do now is run, so he flips his visor down, blinded thanks to all of his tear-offs being slowly ripped to pieces when he was using his helmet as a weapon, and does just that, ducking his head and blindly charging in the vague direction of his destination.

Somehow his strategy works, thudding into bodies and shoving them aside. It works until one goes down in front of him and he trips, tumbling over its prone body and barrel rolling his way to his knees. He takes a precious second to look up and squint through his visor to get his bearings. That precious second proves to be one second too much.

As he pushes himself up with a pained grunt, they're on him; he doesn't know how many, but there's certainly more than one pair of hands grabbing at his limbs. There's hissing and snarling, the sound of death rattles echoing through his head, he squirms and fights, throws punches, throat closing up in fear. _Too many. Too many._ He knocks one of them away, but more are coming. He's less than twenty feet from the door, from potential safety. He's pulled almost off his feet and hoarsely shouts a stream of curses. Shakes off one as its teeth are inches from his bicep. Throws a punch, one down, two in its place. Dead, staring eyes and bared, bloodied teeth everywhere he looks. Lightheaded from bloodloss. Twenty feet. _Too many._

Suddenly something grabs at his shoulder, takes hold of his shirt and yanks it. The sudden force is enough to jerk him out of the grasp of two creatures, and he kicks away two more, but before he can beat his new assailant off, it lets go and grabs his wrist in a vice like grip. He looks over his shoulder, ready to spit and stamp and scream his way towards death, and—

"Come on, mate."

The sound of a voice, an achingly familiar one, almost makes Felipe's legs buckle, and he claws at his ruined visor to ham-fistedly flip it up. Rob, matted hair and blood-spattered face, with a fire axe in one hand and Felipe's wrist held tightly in the other. His expression is a mixture of relief and urgency; there's even a small smile playing on his lips. Eyes widening, a laugh fights its way out of Felipe's constricted throat, one of delirious relief. Before they edge back into the safety of the medical centre, Rob swiping at the advancing undead with his axe, Felipe feels the tension flood out of him.

"You took too long," he murmurs with a weary smile, leaning heavily against his race engineer, slowly slipping into unconsciousness.


End file.
